


When You Are Done

by toswimamongthestars



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Death, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, and some kind of contented endings, some 2014 endverse-ish stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8263394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toswimamongthestars/pseuds/toswimamongthestars
Summary: Five ways the Winchester boys might have finished their story.





	

i. sam and dean keep driving. they carry on hunting. they save each other a hundred times, they save strangers a thousand different ways. they find a way to live with the balance of lives taken and lives saved, and keep going.

 

ii. they die together. fighting a demon or a wendigo or a ghost, it really doesn’t matter. they fall side by side, and their souls reach heaven side by side. they look at each other in the light and decide that the fate of the world has rested on their shoulders long enough. someone else can take care of it now. there are more hunters, more people to join the family business.

they rest.

they find peace. 

 

iii. demon blood rears its head and swallows sam whole. 2014 was a little late in the end, but oh it came with a vengeance. the cage breaks. lucifer takes sam. dean eludes michael, hunting for a way to save sam. castiel tries to help and loses his grace. there’s not much he can do. 

michael gives up the ideal of free will and takes dean without asking. 

the battle between brothers leaves little behind in the world. it’s a terrible war, crashing through every corner of the globe and leaving no spot unbroken. 

cas dies somewhere. by the time he’s gone, no one’s left to care about him. sam might have screamed when he saw the charcoal angel wings, dean might have wept when he saw the final flash of grace escaping cas’ eyes, but their possessors kept them both in check. 

sam is ragged with fighting. dean waits for years, saving up strength one drop at a time. he remembers what happened before. a moment of weakness is all it takes. 

in the end, neither one wins. lucifer and michael chase each other in circles until they’re exhausted, making stupid mistakes. one leaves an opening, the other takes it. two sets of wings burn into the rubble of a city. two brothers’ bodies cradle each other in the settling dust. 

 

...

 

heaven is no place for rest when they get there, but sam and dean have each other again. what angels remain are battling, and the souls are forgotten in the melee. 

sam and dean find bobby. the find ellen and jo and ash. they find mom and dad. they find hunters, victims, old friends, old enemies. together, a motley band of souls go up against angels and demons. somehow, against everything, they win. they put heaven back into some semblance of order. 

in the end, things settle. and everyone gets down to the business of enjoying their long-deserved reward. 

 

iv. dean dies.

dean dies, and sam doesn’t bring him back. he might not be able to, they’ve used up all the demon deals and spells they can. or maybe he doesn’t try. what’s dead should stay dead, after all, and they’ve had more than their fair chance. 

he’s haunted for a while, by the ghost of his brother. dean’s green eyes hanging around the boy sam saves, the edges of his face glinting in the mirror, a hint of approval every time sam puts in a cassette of rock music. 

but ghosts turn sour, and sam can’t watch that happen. and dean doesn’t want it to happen. it doesn’t take long to figure out what’s tying dean to earth; he only had so many treasured items. 

sam burns the impala in the ashes of bobby’s home. he watches red-eyed as dean fades away, laid to rest. the skeleton of the car is a worse gravestone than any sam had imagined. 

he’s alone, but not for long. sam is never alone for long. he finds castiel, he finds other hunters. he teaches the younger ones the tricks of the trade, the things his daddy and his brother taught him. 

sam leaves a trail of saved lives wherever he goes. 

 

v. sam dies. and dean lets him go.

…

after living through the hell that followed  _ that _ , dean starts doing what sam wanted him to. he moves on. 

he rebuilds the roadhouse just like it was, only it’s not the same without ash and the harvelles. hunters start to come again, and dean goes out with them on the hardest missions, dolls out advice, and sells salt-packed shotgun rounds like candy. 

somewhere in there, he stops waiting for death and gets on with living.

he helps castiel get the angels in line, because sam deserves a good heaven. 

he grows old. 


End file.
